


On the Shore of the Wide World

by Polomonkey



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Cages, Dark Arthur, F/F, Healing, M/M, Rebellion, Recovery, Sexual Slavery, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4906966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/pseuds/Polomonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin's a mail order omega, bought by Arthur to serve and please.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Shore of the Wide World

**Author's Note:**

> Fills my trope bingo squares 'alpha/beta/omega', 'locked in', and 'mail order bride/groom', and my h/c bingo square 'tyranny/rebellion'
> 
> Warning: I've written a lot of fluff recently but this is a dark fic, set in a universe where omegas are treated like property. Please read the tags and play it safe if it doesn't look like your cup of tea.

Merlin sleeps in a cage nowadays.

Back at the Centre, he slept in a nest with three other omegas. It was crowded but he got used to lying close to the others as he slept; taking warmth from their bodies. He and his best friend Will would snuggle up together, inhale each other scents and take what comfort they could from the crumbs of affection they were allowed to share.

Merlin had thought the Centre was a cold place. But he misses it now. The cage Arthur makes him sleep in is small and cramped. He only has one blanket to cover himself, not enough to nest with. When he’s been good, the cage is set down in Arthur’s bedroom for the night. When he’s been bad, the cage is set down in the damp and draughty basement, and Merlin is left to shiver alone.

Arthur is his alpha, and good and bad are arbitrary qualities in his mind. Or at least it seems that way to Merlin, who can never tell what he does to incur Arthur’s wrath. 

But Arthur doesn’t need to explain his reasoning to Merlin. He bought him and he owns him and Merlin doesn’t get a say in any of that. Omegas don’t get a say in anything.

***

Every morning is the same. Arthur unlocks his cage, and he stumbles on stiff legs to the kitchen to prepare Arthur’s breakfast. When Arthur’s ready to eat, Merlin crawls under the table and opens his mouth to allow Arthur to push his cock inside. He has to hold it in his mouth until Arthur gives him the signal, clicking his fingers impatiently to indicate that he wants Merlin to start sucking.

They made them practice at the Centre, on silicone toys. Nothing could have prepared Merlin for how intrusive it is, how choked he feels with an alpha’s cock rammed down his throat. Arthur invades every part of Merlin’s body like he has a right to, and it never gets any easier. 

They still call them mail order omegas, quaintly. But it’s all done online nowadays, neat little profiles with photos of omegas in submissive postures, rows of statistics laid out below them. Merlin still remembers the day they took his photo, remembers being stripped and made to bow his head, forced to look tempting and docile for the alphas out there searching for an omega of their very own.

Will used to say it was different in other countries. That there were places in the world where omegas weren’t slaves; places where they were respected or even cherished. But Will lied a lot and Merlin didn’t think that could be true. He’d never met an alpha or a beta who didn’t look at him like he was less than human.

***

Merlin cleans the house while Arthur’s at work. Arthur pushes a plug up inside him before he leaves every day, “to keep you nice and loose for me.” They had to wear training plugs at the Centre most days, so that’s nothing new. But Merlin still hates the feel of it inside him.

Arthur seems to think he likes it.

“It gets you wet, doesn’t it? You’re all slick around my fingers, I can feel it.”

The staff at the Centre used his slick as evidence that he enjoyed it too, whenever he tried to rebel.

“It’s your biological imperative, why fight it? Your body wants to be mated, that’s why it makes itself ready like this.”

Merlin doesn’t see how getting wet has anything to do with what he wants. It’s a bodily function, like sweating or blinking. He doesn’t have any control over it. He tried telling the staff at the Centre that, but nobody listened.

The plug Arthur puts inside him has the word ‘bitch’ written on it in tiny letters.

“I heard in China they revere omegas like Gods,” Will whispered one night, when they’d spent the whole day tied to a breeding bench, and Merlin was crying helplessly. “I’ll get you to China, Merls. I promise you.”

But then Arthur came and took Merlin away, before he and Will could go anywhere.

***

Arthur has his alpha friends over sometimes. He doesn’t let them touch Merlin, he’s too possessive for that. But he lets them watch when he touches Merlin, lets them crowd round when he straps Merlin to the breeding bench and knots him for their approval.

It’s like a tiny death, each time Merlin feels that knot expand inside him. Like it’s pushing all the life out of him, and one day he’ll just disappear, because there’ll be nothing left of him.

Occasionally, Arthur’s alpha sister and her beta girlfriend come over too. Morgana is disdainful and imperious, she ignores Merlin completely. He initially thinks Gwen’s friendlier, he’s sure there’s some warmth in her eyes when she looks at him, but one week they’re round and Arthur’s talking about the cage.

“Merlin hasn’t earned a place in my bed yet, have you Merlin? But I let it sleep in my room occasionally.”

Arthur always calls him ‘it’. The word drags over his skin like sandpaper every time he hears it.

"Can I see the cage?" Gwen says unexpectedly. "We're thinking of getting our own one day, I wouldn't mind some advice on hardware."

“You’re thinking of getting an omega?” Arthur says, surprised. “I thought you didn’t approve.”

“I like yours,” Gwen says casually. “It’s pretty.”

Merlin knows it’s stupid to feel betrayed. But he still cries a little when he lies down to sleep that night. He'd always hoped Gwen was different somehow. But she believes omegas should be bought and sold too. Apparently everyone does.

***

It’s three weeks later and he’s sleeping in the basement again, punishment for being bad. At least he knows what he did this time; takes some small satisfaction in the fact that he called out Will’s name just as Arthur’s knot was swelling inside him. But he’s sore now, and he’s tired, and the gag Arthur shoved into his mouth before he locked him up is hard and painful.

So when he sees dark figures approaching, he can only whimper around it, until a torch light flicks on.

“Shhh, Merlin, it’s us.”

Gwen and Morgana are there, dressed in black, tools in their hands and rucksacks on their backs.

He shakes his head, not understanding. They shouldn’t be here, not tonight, he’ll get in trouble again and Arthur’s already hurt him enough…

“It’s okay,” Gwen says softly. “We’re going to get you out. It’s all going to be okay.”

She’s quick to pick the cage lock, and he suddenly understands the time she spent examining it before, but what he doesn’t know yet is why.

He nearly cries when they pull the gag out, when they help him to his numb feet, but he manages to hold it back. It all comes out when they’re finally speeding away in the van; when he’s lying on the backseat with his head resting in Gwen’s lap, her fingers stroking through his hair.

“Why?” he chokes out through the sobs, as Gwen rubs Vaseline into his sore lips, dabs disinfectant on the scratches that litter his back.

“Because you’re a human being, Merlin,” Gwen says steadily. “Not property. And you have a right to be free.” 

A human being. Not an it. Not a bitch. Not a slave. A human being. Merlin feels a piece of himself slot back into place, something that’s been missing so long he forgot it was ever there.

He hopes the other pieces will come back to him too, one day.

***

Morgana and Gwen have done this before, Merlin discovers. He doesn’t know what he’s more surprised to learn; that there’s an underground omega rescue service right here in England, or that Will was right all along, that omegas are free in other countries. The rebellion's been going for years, omegas smuggled to safe havens by daring volunteers. 

Gwen and Morgana are taking him to Prague. They have contacts there, have a room and a bed waiting for him.

It all sounds too good to be true, except…

"Arthur will come after me," Merlin says, terror freezing his momentary happiness.

Morgana smirks from the front seat.

"I imagine he'll be too busy dealing with the police for a while. Since I planted seven bricks of heroin in his house and then phoned in an anonymous tip."

Merlin stares at her in shock.

"Don't ask where Morgana got seven bricks of heroin," Gwen says. "I find it's best not to question her ways at this point."

It might not distract Arthur for long, but Merlin slumps in relief. He can't ever go back there. He doesn't even want to imagine what Arthur would do to him as punishment for escaping.

Memories of the last six months overwhelm him and suddenly the van feels close and airless. Merlin breathes in and out slowly, scared any moment he’s going to wake up back in that cage again and find that this was all just a dream.

Gwen seems to sense this, and she holds his hand when they stop at a café along the road for breakfast. He stares out at the cars rushing by on the motorway, and tries to make sense of his newfound freedom. 

“Can I help you?” he says when he’s back in the car, head cradled on Gwen’s lap again. “With the rescue service? Can I join you?”

Morgana and Gwen exchange a look, and then nod.

“When you’ve recuperated. A few months in Prague, at least. Then we’ll send for you.”

Merlin knows it can’t stop here with his own freedom. He has to try and help others like him, has to do what he can to change the way things are.

"Can we try to find my friend Will?" he asks, a lump coming to his throat from just speaking his friend's name.

"Yes," Gwen says softly, rubbing the back of his head with warm, steady hands. 

And Merlin finally feels able to drift off to sleep, safe in her arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! More soon...


End file.
